Mr. Zaleski played Santa for the fifth straight year with the hope of helping every student in need receive a gift during the holiday season. As a 31-year member of Riverhead’s highway department, Mr. Zaleski said he is happy to use his longtime municipal status as a platform to give back to those in need. He was reelected highway superintendent this November.

“It’s really a good thing,” Mr. Zaleski said. “And I’m very humbled, because every year it grows more and more.”

His son Ryan attended school in Riverhead, and Roanoke Avenue Elementary principal Thomas Payton left an indelible mark on Mr. Zaleski as an attentive school administrator. 

“Mr. Payton would literally wait for my son and walk him in to school every day,” Mr. Zaleski said. “So I never forgot something like that.”

The principal keeps a list of local children in need throughout Riverhead’s grade schools—including Aquebogue, Riley Avenue, Roanoke Avenue and Phillips Avenue—and helps distribute the toys throughout the district. 

“[They] make sure all of the children in need get something,” Mr. Zaleski said. 

Roanoke Avenue Elementary School assistant principal Andrea Lopez told the Riverhead News-Review the school is “extremely grateful” for Mr. Zaleski’s generosity. When dropping off toys Monday afternoon, Ms. Lopez couldn’t help but notice the big smile on Mr. Zaleski’s face.

“Receiving all of this for our families and our parents, it really makes their holiday,” she said. “It’s the most gracious thing that he could do. You know things are tight nowadays, and it lifts up the spirits of everybody and makes that bridge between our school and the community that much tighter.”

When collecting the toys, Mr. Zaleski asks that people donate a variety of toys for students in grades 1 through 4—dolls, trucks, board games, paint sets, you name it. This year, roughly 500 toys were donated by community members with the help of Riverhead Moose Lodge 1742, All Suffolk Car Clubs and Fink’s Country Farm.

The toy donation is accompanied by an annual 5K that Mr. Zaleski runs—something residents are likely familiar with from his years of running in town. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Zaleski ran a 5K to support healthcare workers and has run several others in support of local food banks since. 

Mr. Zaleski consistently goes above and beyond for his community, with over a decade of educational, interactive elementary school visits displaying highway department equipment like snow plows and dump trucks. His efforts earned him and the Riverhead Highway Department the Riverhead News-Review’s 2024 Public Servant of the Year award. 

“It’s just all ‘do good to feel good,’” Mr. Zaleski said of his efforts. “That’s basically my motto.”

The post Riverhead Highway Santa delivers 500 toys for students in need appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

The celebration on Saturday, Dec. 6, also featured the school’s annual wreath sale, the lighting of its giant wreath and hot cocoa.

“It’s the start of the holiday season,” said principal Thomas Payton. “This is a magical time of year, particularly for elementary kids, and this kicks it off.”

The annual wreath sale has been a staple for the school since 2011, a year after Mr. Payton became principal. The sale acts as a fundraiser for the school’s PTO, with all of the money going back toward helping the students. 

The school’s fourth-grade singers showed off their voices, belting out three holiday tunes, led by Lily Kutner, the school’s music teacher. Following the special concert, parents joined their kids and looked up to the window above the main entrance, counting down from 10. At the end of the countdown, the window was illuminated by the school’s giant wreath, lit up with multicolored lights.

1 | 8

Karla and Carlos Vasquez were all smiles at their school’s holiday celebration. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter) Madison Grigg and Amethyst Marshall braved the cold weather to celebrate with their friends. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter) Principal Thomas Payton thanked families for coming out to continue the annual tradition. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter) Music teacher Lily Kutner led the fourth-grade singers. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter) For the first time, the Riverhead Fire Department helped light up a Christmas tree for the school. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter) PTO members Cleydi Amaya, Melissa Mapes, Lindsay Raynor and Karma Marshall helped put together the festive event. (Credit: Brendan Carpenter

Mr. Payton said the wreath was originally donated by a former student’s parent. They asked if they could hang it up, and it turned into a beloved holiday tradition. 

This year’s celebration featured for the first time the help of Riverhead Fire Department, which is located directly across the street. Students, parents and administrators were happy with the surprise addition, taking pictures in front of the tree.

Families also took photos next to a blow-up Frosty the Snowman. 

After the festivities were over, everyone lined up for hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies from the PTO, warming up holiday-style on a chilly winter night.

“We have the wreath that will be lit through the holiday season. Now, a tree, for the first time, is going to be lit through the holiday season,” said Mr. Payton. “I think that this signifies the holiday season for our students.”

The post Roanoke Avenue Elementary School lights up for the holidays appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

1 | 6

Roanoke Ave. Elementary Principal Thomas Payton’s hair before the cut. (Credit: Jahquel Blount) Barber Rashad Goff did the honors at Roanoke Elementary Friday (Credit: Jahquel Blount)

For 20 years, Roanoke Avenue Elementary School principal Thomas Payton has gone to extreme lengths to instill a love of reading in his students. His annual reading challenge isn’t part of the job description — it’s a tradition built on creativity, enthusiasm and quite a bit of good-natured self-sacrifice.

The tradition, like Mr. Payton, came out of the sprawling Clark County school district in Las Vegas — the fifth largest in the nation — which holds an annual weeklong reading campaign around the March 2 birthday of beloved children’s book author Dr. Seuss, born Theodor Seuss Geisel.

For a week, the entire school logs every minute spent reading, whether in classes, at lunch, on the bus or at home. Schools set six- and seven-figure goals, and this year’s goal for Roanoke Avenue students was to collectively read 90,000 minutes.

“It was really big in Vegas,” Mr. Payton said. “So when I came to Riverhead, I thought it would be cool to bring it with me.”

It started simply enough. “The first year, I got my head shaved and that was it,” Mr. Payton recalled last week, moments before settling into a barber’s chair on stage. “The next year, I dressed as a chicken and did the chicken dance. From there, it just kept growing. I dressed as a clown. One year, I rode in on a tricycle. Another year, the kids turned me into a human [ice cream] sundae. Every time, I had to make it bigger.”

When Mr. Payton transferred to Roanoke Avenue in 2010, the tradition came with him. Over the years, he’s faced off in a lip sync battle with a fourth-grade teacher, been bombarded with water balloons and been duct-taped to a wall. Last year, he was happy to be slathered head to toe in Silly String. This year, he circled back to the head-shave — this time with a twist.

“I had [barber] Rashad [Goff] shave the word ‘READ’ into my head,” Mr. Payton said proudly.

This year, Roanoke Avenue students didn’t just meet their goal, they obliterated it. School officials confirmed that students logged a staggering 127,000 minutes — an average of about five and a half hours of reading per child. While, there were carve-outs for the youngest students — those who can’t yet read could be read to — Mr. Payton said parents signed off on their children’s reading logs every night.

“It’s a legit log,” Mr. Payton emphasized. “Parents sign off on it. These kids did their reading.”

The effort was bolstered by creative evening events, including a Tuesday night “Curl Up with a Good Book” session with milk and cookies, where parents and students read together. Wednesday featured the school’s first-ever family game night, designed to get kids off screens and engaged in interactive activities — many of which, of course, involved books.

By Friday, anticipation had reached fever pitch. The entire student body packed into the auditorium, their chants of “Shave your head! Shave your head!” rivaling the energy of a championship game. Teachers egged on the crowd from the aisles. Sections of students clumsily attempted “the wave.” It was a scene of pure, boisterous joy.

Members Worldwide — a videography team of college students, including videographers Curtis and Daytwon Spruill and photographer Jahquel Blount — captured the excitement in a video shared with Riverhead News-Review readers.

Third-grade teacher Christine Santos’ class logged the most reading minutes schoolwide — more than 13,000.

“I tried to base everything this week off of reading,” she said, “whether it was working in groups, reading an article and then working together. I had them read their math questions, and they did a math quiz during reading. I had them do funny reading as a period, and then they worked themselves on independent reading with books and Scholastic News stories.”

Mr. Payton said each September, the first question on students’ minds is what he’s going to do for reading week.

“If I can put a little incentive in to pump them up, I’m certainly going to do that,” he said, adding that last week, the excitement in the air was palpable.

“You see kids coming back from lunch, they’re walking by our office, waving and making motions like they’re pretending to shave my head,” the principal said. “They’re just having a ball with it.”

In 20 years of reading week challenges, Mr. Payton noted, his kids have “never missed their mark.”

“I think I’m going to have to go over 100,000 minutes, because the last few years they’ve hit 120,000, 130,000, 150,000.”

Ms. Santos said it’s not just the kids who are competing.

“It’s a great tradition — super exciting — and it’s always great to have them work towards something,: she explained. “But, secretly, we all like to compete at the grade levels and Ms. [Donna] Verbeck is our veteran teacher and I always try my hardest to see if I can beat her, and I finally beat her this year.”

The post Riverhead principal promotes the ‘shear’ joy of reading   appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Principal Thomas Payton and Assistant Principal Gary Karlson also turned one of the school bulletin boards into a display of gratitude towards staff expressed in 100 different languages.

Courtesy photos

The post 100 days of kindergarten at Roanoke Avenue Elementary appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

(Credit: Courtesy photos)

The post Roanoke Avenue Elementary hosts outdoor learning day appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

The students rose to the school’s annual reading week challenge and then some: Parent- and teacher-verified reading logs for the student body of approximately 400 kids in grades K-4 totaled a whopping 151,206 minutes, nearly double Mr. Payton’s target.

“It seems like every year I raise the bar for our students and not only do they hit that bar, they exceed it,” Mr. Payton said minutes before meeting his duct-tape fate. “This is always my favorite week of the year. By doing this silly stuff, I’m motivating them to read a tremendous amount for the week. Instead of going home and being on a screen, hopefully they’re going home and reading a book.”

When music teacher Roy Buccola announced the students’ impressive results over the school’s loudspeaker just minutes before the big event Friday, screams of excitement reverberated through the walls of the elementary school.

Students then stampeded down the stairs Friday to find their Mr. Payton propped atop a milk crate, back to the wall, smiling, awaiting the taping.

With rolls of tape, red, white and blue, the kids knew what they had to do. They taped him up in ones and twos, from arms and legs to black dress shoes.

This was hardly the most daunting reading week punishment Mr. Payton has endured. The worst, he said, was an onslaught of pies to the face a few years ago.

“I just smelled like sour milk afterwards,” he said. “It was disgusting.”

Perhaps the principal’s favorite was a lip-sync battle between him and a teacher. After duking it out over songs from Disney classics, Mr. Payton donned cowboy boots and a duster and clinched the championship belt with a performance of “Old Town Road.”

In other years, Mr. Payton has performed the Chicken Dance in a chicken suit, was drenched by water balloons and even had the word ‘read’ shaved into his head.

NICHOLAS GRASSO PHOTOS

But Roanoke’s reading week it not just about students embarrassing their principal. The Parent Teacher Organization hosts a Scholastic Book Fair in conjunction with the read-a-thon. Plus, the school arranges a spirit week of activities that kicked off last Monday with a “happy birthday” chorus to Dr. Seuss.

“My literacy team popped into every classroom and read a Dr. Seuss book to the kids, and they had their Dr. Seuss hats on,” Mr. Payton said. “It was also wear red day: ‘Wear red cause we’re well read.'”

Children wore hats for ‘hats off to reading’ last Tuesday, sported their favorite team’s attire for ‘team up and read’ last Wednesday, and donned pajamas for ‘curl up with a good book’ Friday.

Although the other themes of the week change year-to-year, Thursday has traditionally been reserved for the ‘poem in your pocket’ day.

“Kids write a poem, they can either make one up or use a published one, and put it in their pocket,” Mr. Payton explained. “If an adult asks them to recite it they do it and they get a pencil.”

The post Students duct tape principal to wall at Roanoke Ave Elementary School — their reward for a stellar ‘reading week’ appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Students and their families set up tables in the school cafeteria to represent their respective countries, some decorated with colorful embroidery and jewelry, and home-cooked food from their cultures for classmates and members of the school community to sample. 

Students were given a “paper passport,” which got stamped at each country they “visited.” Among the countries represented were Poland, El Salvador, Guatemala, Italy, Ukraine, U.S.A., Honduras and the Republic of Georgia.

There were pierogis from Poland — dumplings made from wrapped unleavened dough around a savory or sweet filling. There were pupusas from El Salvador — a thick griddle cake that can be stuffed with cheese, beans and various meats from El Salvador, as well as sweet and sour meatballs from the U.S.A and more.

Thursday night’s event — which had about 80 community members in attendance — featured a table for Ukraine hosted by Iryna Strochenko, Oleksii Arkhypenko and their daughter, Alisa Arkhypenko a student at Roanoke. They participated in the event for the first time.

The table was covered in children’s books in Ukranian, hand-made accessories, Ukranian folk clothing and more.

“It’s very important for me to show not only the beauty of the country but also the tragedy that our Ukrainian people are going through now,” Ms. Strochenko said, referring to the war that has been raging between Ukraine and Russia since last February.

Mayra Pina from Ecuador and her child from kindergarten attended for the first time and said the cultural representation in event was very important to them.

“We get to learn more about many traditions, [and eat] many meals from each participating country,” she said in Spanish. 

The event, Roanoke Around the World, was started through the school’s parent teacher organization (PTO) as an annual tradition in 2016, and is back after a three-year pandemic hiatus.

“It turned into an event that everyone at Roanoke looks forward to,” school principal Thomas Payton said. “We have a new PTO board three years later,” he said. “We had talked about firing it back up again this year now that all COVID-19 restrictions are pretty much over, so we thought that this would be an excellent activity to bring back to Roanoke,” he said.

It took about two months for the current PTO to plan this event, he said.

PTO president Paul Pettersen made the flyers for the event, helped set up for the event at the cafeteria and helped make sure the announcement of the event went out to the schools’ families.

“We tried to promote it as much as we could to get as many people here because Riverhead is one of the most culturally-diverse areas on Long Island and we have some wonderful families here,” he said.

In prior years, Spainish flamenco dancers were invited to entertain the crowd. This year the Mariachi Juvenil, which translates to youth mariachi, delighted the audience with renditions of Mexican folk songs like “Como Quien Pierde Una Estrella” by Mexican singer, Alejandro Fernandez, which translates to “Like he who loses a star,” among others.

Roanoke students Bryanna Cortes and Isaac Fajardo performed an improvised Honduran folk dance.

Geraldine Garcia, the PTO’s cultural representative, said that the event is meant to bring together the entire school community.

“It’s just getting our community together,” she said. “Since Covid, we didn’t do much and we weren’t allowed to hang out like we’re doing right now, so this is free time for everyone to know each other,” she said.

Mr. Peyton said he looks forward to seeing what the PTO can do with this event in the future.

“My PTO board is incredible,” Mr. Peyton said. “They put an incredible amount of work into all the events that they put on for our students and for our community here at Roanoke and they’ve worked especially hard at rekindling this massive event. 

“Hopefully we can take off further with it starting next year.”

The post Roanoke Elementary event takes students ‘around the world’ at multicultural event appeared first on Riverhead News Review.